The use of stents in blood vessels and other structures in the body has become a well established clinical procedure over the past several years. The equipment and techniques for deploying stents inside blood vessels are well established. Most stents currently available are deployed by being crimped to an angioplasty balloon. During some procedures, the stent becomes mispositioned on the angioplasty balloon or completely disengages from the balloon. When this occurs, the stent has to be retrieved and the insertion procedure has to be repeated.
Some medical devices have physical properties that make such devices potentially unstable before the device can be properly positioned during a medical procedure. One such device is a self expanding stent. These stents are typically designed to expand after being heated by the body to a certain temperature. If a medical procedure takes too long or is delayed, or the stent becomes dislodged during an insertion procedure, such stent can prematurely expand before the stent is properly positioned.
In view of the current state of art, there is a need for a device and method for physically retaining a medical device in a particular form and/or on a particular deployment device until the medical device is properly positioned in a desired location.